


Bullet Wounds

by RedBubbles



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mercy being an adorable dork, Trauma description, Ventricular fibrillation, bullet wounds, cardiac arrest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 16:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10167173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBubbles/pseuds/RedBubbles
Summary: Two bullet wounds to the torso, a collapsed lung, a myriad of broken bones, and a heart on the verge of cardiac arrest; any normal doctor would struggle to even keep their patient on the thin line between life and death. But Angela Ziegler is no normal doctor, she's a miracle worker (some of the time)





	

The familiar swoop of nerves threads through your stomach as the helicopter lifts into the air, and as you lie back against the seat, you think of the three things you’re sure of:

Angela and Jack are the only ones who left with you  
You’ve lost over half a pint of blood  
There are two bullets lodged somewhere in your torso

You can feel the cool pressure of Angela’s fingers on your wrist, but you can’t see them. Your helmet weights heavily on your head, the built in oxygen mask pumping air in and out of your lungs for you. 

“Jack, her pulse is weak. Can't you fly any faster?”  
“I’m doing my best, sit tight,” comes the growled response. 

Her fingers pinch your jugular gently, and touch your lips. Her wrist hovers over your mouth briefly.

“She is still breathing, and her airways are unobstructed,”  
“Can’t you use your staff?”

You try to frown. He makes a good point. Why can’t she? Did it break? Did she lose it?

What even happened? Why are you here? Your head is swimming, and your chest is aching, and you feel as though maybe you shouldn’t be conscious for this. 

Angela’s arms are around you, and she’s holding you against her at an angle, so your head is tilted back and your airways are open. Her thumb strokes over your shoulder, rubbing gently, the one reminder that she’s still your lover as well as your doctor.

“I can’t. She has two bullets and shrapnel and grit lodged inside the lacerations on her back. If I heal her, they will heal inside her, and we will just have more problems,”

Inhaling is incredibly painful. It feels as though there’s a heavy weight pressing down on your right side. You try to shift, wanting to pull off whatever weighs on your chest, but you find your body is unresponsive. 

“We’re about 5 minutes away. Can she hold on that long?”

“Ja, but hurry,” she says, and then drops her voice, speaking only to you, “you are going to be ok, schäri, I promise,”

You smile inwardly at the nickname, wishing you could respond with one of your own.

“I’ve called ahead, they’re getting a stretcher ready. Can you lift her?”

“Of course I can,” she responds, “but I do not know if she can be lifted. I am worried about her condition,”

So much for being ok.

You groan inwardly. You can’t even remember what had happened, only that one minute you were on your feet, and the next you were on the ground in a sticky pool of your own blood with Angela’s blurred face leaning over you.

The helicopter touches down, and as the heavy whirring thud of the blades dies down, the door is thrown open, and a myriad of hands are clutching and pulling and lifting you. Pain streaks through your entire body, and you desperately want to scream and writhe. The heavy helmet on your head weighs your head down, and someone cradles it gently.

You back touches the soft surface of a stretcher, and you’re immediately rushed away.

“Doctor Ziegler, do you want us to-“  
“Nein,” comes the immediate answer, “I will attend to her myself,”

It’s the first time you’ve ever heard her cut someone off. You almost feel important.

Doors are pushed open, banging and clattering. The surface beneath you is becoming slick with blood, and you try to squirm uncomfortably.

Another set of doors are thrown open, and the light on the other side of your eyelids becomes a lot brighter. The stretcher comes to a halt, and the doors opens and closes a second time.

“Jack, you don’t need to-“  
“I can help,”  
“I would prefer to work alone,”  
“You’re gonna need help. You always do, and you always call me in. I’m thinking ahead,”

There’s silence. 

How many times had you seen Angela’s gentle healers hands going to work on a battered body, gently pricking skin with needles, bandaging limbs, dabbing gently at cuts? 

It had never been you receiving the treatment, however. This was definitely new.

“Alright,"

You can’t see her, but you can feel her hands gently smoothing back your hair, moving nimbly to attach life saving tubes and wires to your skin, making tiny incisions to slip them inside you. You can imagine the look on her face; one you’ve seen many times. The furrow of her eyebrows, the intense look in her eyes, the set of her jaw, her teeth worrying at her lip ever so slightly.

You can hear Jack breathing heavily beside her, and feel his shadow hanging over you.

And you still can’t move.

“How’s she doing?” 

You feel Angela lean over you, and then she eases your helmet from your head.  
“Stable, but only just. She has a lot of broken bones, and her right lung has collapsed, and one of the bullets is lodged just below her diaphragm,”

Jack hisses through his teeth.  
“Can you get it out?” he asks.

There’s a soft laugh from Angela, and your heart melts a little.  
“Of course I can. I can work some miracles,”

There’s a sharp pain in your right side that’s almost drowned out by the dull ache radiating from where the bullet must be, and an odd feeling as she begins to feed a tube into it.

“Jack, please check her airways,” she says. The tube worms its way deeper inside you, and you try to move away from the discomfort. Your muscles must twitch involuntarily, because a sharp, unbearable pain suddenly flares in your side. Your heart rate suddenly spikes, and Jack’s hand tilts your head back slightly.

"Easy, easy," he mutters, "we're gonna fix you up,"

Finally, as the pain begins to fade ever so slightly, you become aware of the gradual decrease in pressure in your right lung.

“Ah,” Angela says in relief, “danke Gott,”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Ja. Her lung is draining. Slowly, but it’s draining. I’m not quite done yet, I have to try and get a balloon down there to inflate it and stop it from collapsing in on itself again,"

“What about the bullets?”

“I…I will do that after I have inflated her lung,"

You can hear the smart snap of latex gloves, and Jack leans over you, his voice close to your ear.  
“You better hang in there, alright? I’m not losing another good sniper,”

You’d smile if you could at the absurdity of his comment. You’d never thought of yourself as a _good_ sniper, and he knew that.

There’s a rustle of clothing, which you can only assume is Angela pulling on a sterilised coat. You wonder if she had time to take off the Valkyrie suit. Probably not.

She begins to untangle more wires, and an oxygen mask rests on your chest as she gently wires you up to a drip.

“Ok, so I will sedate her, and then-"

The sudden increase in your pulse makes you jolt, but not enough to actually move.

You don’t feel any different, except for the thudding in your chest. You lung is beginning to feel clearer, but you can definitely feel your heart beating almost angrily in your chest.

“Angela,” Jack growls softly. She simply glances at the heart monitor, and then back down at you.  
“Up 184 beats a minute,” she whispers under her breath, “not a problem,”

The tremble in her voice betrays just how much of a problem it is, and her hands begin moving faster, fastening the oxygen mask over your mouth and nose. The cool brush of oxygen against your lips rouses you slightly.

The pace of the monitor only increases, the angry beeps echoing with terrifying frequency through the room.

“Angela!”

“She has a collapsed lung, I must deal with that first!” she replies, now beginning to sound slightly panicked. How desperately you want to embrace her, to stroke her hair and tell her that she’s doing her best.

A sudden sharp increase in the beats draws a sharp gasp from her.

“Angela, you need to-"

“Code blue, she is going into cardiac arrest, get me the defibrillator!”

You can hear the frantic _beepbeepbeepbeep_ of the heart monitor, and desperately try to open your eyes, to assure Angela that you’re ok. Your chest hurts, and your head aches, and you’re about 2 minutes away from flatlining, but if the over-working of your heart doesn’t kill you, the terrified tremor in Angela’s voice will.

There’s the heavy thud of footsteps moving away from the bed. Angela’s delicate hands work at tearing open your skin-tight undershirt, which is rather impressive considering Reinhardt had gifted it to you on account of it being nearly impervious to damage. So many other scenarios in which you’d be delighted for her to remove your shirt, but _this is not one of them_.

Jack moves closer, and there’s a clatter as he puts something down beside the bed.

 _Definitely_ not a scenario in which you want your shirt off.

“Ventricular fibrillation,” she murmurs, “200 joules, Jack, please charge it up,”

“On it,” he replies. There’s a click, and then a quiet whirring. 

“Ok,” she smoothes your hair back, “200 joules, defibrillated, stand clear,” 

There’s a louder whirring as she lifts the paddles off their rubber pads.

You’d seen defibrillators being used on people in films, but you certainly aren’t prepared for the jolt of electricity that goes through your chest when she presses the two plates to your skin, one just below your ribs, the other one between your breast and collar bone.

It would be enough to make you scream, if your body wasn’t being completely fucking unresponsive. 

There’s a loud _beep_ from the heart monitor, but it’s almost lost as your heart continues to pound beyond 300 beats a minute.

“Angela!”

She doesn’t respond. There’s another loud whirring. _Oh god, please not again_ you plead silently _please, not again_.

“200 joules, defibrillated, stand clear,”

She slams the paddles onto your chest again.

Surely you shouldn’t be conscious for this?

Silence from the heart monitor. You can hear both Jack and Angela’s laboured breaths, both of them standing stock still. 

Then, there’s a solitary beep, followed by another a safe time later, and then another, and another.

If you could move, you would have bolted straight up out of bed and thrown your arms around Angela’s neck.

But you can barely even sigh in relief. 

“Now it is just the bullets,” Angela says softly. There’s a loud rattle, and then a softer rattle.

“How’re you gonna get them out?”  
“I’ll sedate her, and then remove the one under her diaphragm first, so it doesn’t restrict her lung inflation, then I will remove the one in her rib cage,"

“What about the balloon?”

She sighs.

“I have to worry about the bullets now. There’s a chance of blood poisoning, and I can’t risk her going into cardiac arrest again. Her heart wouldn’t be able to handle ventricular fibrillation a second time,"

Blood poisoning? Ventricular fibrillation? Cardiac arrest?!

“Why d’you need to sedate her? She’s already out cold,”

“Ja, but I don’t want to risk her waking up mid-surgery,” she says. There’s a soft click, and something cold flows into the drip in your arm, sending shivers up and down your skin. Your heart rate picks up a little, and you immediately start to feel drowsy.

Angela’s hands stroke through your hair gently.

“Don’t worry, schäri, you’ll be ok,” she whispers shakily.

You want to smile at her, and take her hand and kiss her cheek. You want to assure her that you know you’ll be ok, because she’s looking after you. But you can’t.

You can only surrender to the darkness as it tugs you under and wipes your mind clean.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------

 

When you open your eyes, you ache all over. The lights seem too bright, and your throat is sore, and you can barely even move your eyes to look around.

Angela is standing at the foot of your bed, staring down at a screen that reads all your vital signs. Her eyes are slightly bloodshot, and her hair is falling from her ponytail. 

Then it dawns on you.

You’ve opened your eyes.

You can see.

You’re _alive_

Wiggling your toes, you open your mouth, meaning to say her name but only managing a baby-like gurgle instead.

Immediately, her head snaps up, and her eyes take a lethargic moment to focus properly on you.

Her immediate reaction is to shut her eyes and murmur something softly under her breath, too quiet for you to hear. Her next reaction is to drop the tablet in her hand and rush to you, almost throwing her arms around your neck, but instead settling for awkwardly resting her arms on your chest, her hands cupping your neck.

She stays there for a few minutes, and you relish the contact, leaning into her as much as you can, focusing on her touch and the weight of her arms on you and the feeling of having her so close after such a traumatic experience.

After a while she leans up, and immediately begins pressing kisses to your face, one hand on your stomach to ensure you don’t sit up (as if you could) and the other moving to cup your cheek.

She then steps back, straightening her lab coat and running her fingers through her fringe.  
“Sorry,” she says, and then smiles a little sheepishly, “I should conduct myself in a more professional manner,"

You can’t help but smile up at her, a twinge running through your jaw as you do so.  
“You’re so cute,” you say, voice hoarse. Every movement makes your jaw hurt, and you prod the heavy bandages around your neck and face. She watches you almost nervously.

“What’s the diagnosis, Dr Ziegler?” you ask, trying to push yourself up a little and immediately thinking better of it as pain laces sharply through your right side. She starts, and her knuckles whiten as she grips the side of the bed. You’ve never seen her quite so agitated.

“You have broken your jaw, your right collar bone, 3 ribs on your right side, and you have sustained a collapsed right lung and been shot twice in the back. Thankfully, one bullet was lodged in your ribs, and the other pierced just below your diaphragm, so nothing major was disturbed,”

You rub your side, wincing at the small lump where a tube runs into your skin.  
“Collapsed lung,” you muse, “never had that before,”

“It was quite severe,” she says, slowly melting back into the professional visage you had initially fallen in love with, “we managed to drain all excess carbon dioxide and fluid, but you’re going to have to remain with that tube for at least a week, to keep your lung inflated,”

You start, ready to protest, but she raises a hand to stop you.  
“Any sooner and you could risk re-collapsing or even rupturing the lung.” Her expression softens a little, “you really gave us a good scare,"

You smile and reach out to her, your hand shaking. She takes it gently, and sits down in a chair beside the bed. With a sigh, she brushes her hair back from her face and rests her head on the mattress, closing her eyes.

“You can rest your head on my stomach if you want,”

She raises her head again, looking alarmed.  
“Nein! You need as little trauma as possible if you are to make a full, quick recovery!”

You smile at her and squeeze her hand.  
“You resting your head gently on my stomach won’t kill me,”

She raises an eyebrow and, hesitantly, rests her head on your stomach, gazing up at you before shutting her eyes.  
“I hate to say it, but in your condition even something gentle might kill you,”

You run your hand through her hair gently, and stroke your thumb over her cheekbone. She looks so exhausted, but also so relieved. 

“Thank you,” you say, resting your hand on her cheek, rubbing her cheekbone soothingly, “I really would have been a goner without Dr Ziegler on the case,”

She laughs, not opening her eyes.  
“Dr Ziegler is pleased that you are satisfied with your care,” she cracks open one eye, “but you have to promise to never do something like that ever again,”

You laugh softly, and even though it’s painful, the sight of Angela’s eyes lighting up just a tiny bit more is enough to make you ignore it.

“I promise,” you lift her hand to your lips, kissing her knuckles softly, “you’ll be stuck with me for a long time yet,"


End file.
